


and they were laughing

by iron_spider



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 15:43:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22498531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: His fault.The billowing fire cloud packs a punch, sucks itself in like a giant monster bubble before bursting, and Peter is thrown—he hits the back of the lab, up in the juncture between the ceiling and the wall. It cracks his neck and he sees stars, landing hard on a fully-occupied workstation. He feels something stab through his side, and he cries out—he hears a few things fall, and there’s another explosion, echoing like a hollow scream against the metal walls.The new wound is beating like a second heart. The blood seeping through his Princess Leia shirt is warm and sticky.More shelving collapses and he hears a pipe burst, and something hard hits the workstation right next to him and slices it in half—he crumples to the ground in a simmering heap, and something round and weighty hits him square in the ear.His hearing goes high pitched. Everything watery, slow motion. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, and the world tilts and pitches. Tries to toss him off.Tony. Tony.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 114
Kudos: 725





	and they were laughing

**Author's Note:**

> For Jules, and her constant optimism that keeps me afloat :)

Peter forgets his last word as soon as he says it, because the explosion is the exclamation point on the end of his sentence. As he’s cascading through the air, the fire licking at his heels, he remembers that he’d been laughing. Tony had said something funny, Peter remembers that too. 

And he remembers, more than anything, that this is his fault.

Distracted. He’d gotten distracted. He didn’t do the goddamn new web recipe right. He isn’t even sure. He doesn’t even know, his fucking brain isn’t working. Maybe he added too much, maybe the wrong amount of methanol, maybe it didn’t bond correctly—he was trying to make them stronger, build on the combinations, create new ones, but somehow, he fucked it up—and the taser webs, and the elevated web bombs—they didn’t mix. There was a reaction, some kind of—he doesn’t know. 

This happened. Explosion. Fire. Fuck up. All at once. Too fast. Too close. In over his fucking head.

His fault.

The billowing fire cloud packs a punch, sucks itself in like a giant monster bubble before bursting, and Peter is thrown—he hits the back of the lab, up in the juncture between the ceiling and the wall. It cracks his neck and he sees stars, landing hard on a fully-occupied workstation. He feels something stab through his side, and he cries out—he hears a few things fall, and there’s another explosion, echoing like a hollow scream against the metal walls.

The new wound is beating like a second heart. The blood seeping through his Princess Leia shirt is warm and sticky.

More shelving collapses and he hears a pipe burst, and something hard hits the workstation right next to him and slices it in half—he crumples to the ground in a simmering heap, and something round and weighty hits him square in the ear.

His hearing goes high pitched. Everything watery, slow motion. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, and the world tilts and pitches. Tries to toss him off.

Tony. Tony.

Tony’s in here. Tony was—he was coding, at the panel by the right wall. He was working on the velocity suit that they came up with together. It’s supposed to raise Peter’s speed, the closest thing to adding thrusters to his already long list of gadgets.

They were laughing. Tony was eating blueberries, and he kept glancing over his shoulder at Peter to check on him. He tossed a blueberry at Peter’s head.

_Stop texting and science, buddy boy, you’re gonna blow something up_

No, no, no. No, no.

His fault. His fault.

“Tony,” Peter says, garbled, and he tastes blood in his mouth. He shivers, suddenly cold, and he pops one eye open.

The sprinklers are on, lashing at the little fire in the corner. The whole room looks like a fucking war zone. Burst pipes, webs covering every surface, tables destroyed, shelves toppled over, everything scattered everywhere. His favorite lab, destroyed.

Peter doesn’t see Tony. 

His fault. His fault.

_Shit._

He braces his hand on the ground, trying to push himself up. “Tony!” he says, sounding drunk, half dead, and his eyes are burning like they don’t wanna stay open. They were laughing, they were laughing not fucking moments ago and now everything is fucking blown up. _What did he forget what did he forget what did he do wrong why was he trying to change things why why why why was he texting Ned about some fucking article about clowns why why why—_

He hears a groan somewhere off in the corner. 

It’s like an alarm, startling him into a semblance of coherence, and he glances up, trying to look around, trying to see him. The air is hot and it’s hard to keep his eyes open, and when he drags himself forward something sharp slips along his leg, tearing his skin.

“Shit,” Peter hisses, trying to draw his leg back, wincing. He pushes himself up further, sucking in a breath that feels like it’s all smoke. “Tony. Tony, where are you?”

“Pete,” Tony’s voice croaks.

Peter’s hearing buzzes in and out, too soft and too loud, but finally, he can hear Tony’s heartbeat.

“Peter,” Tony says, a little stronger. “Kid.”

He’s in the nook in the corner, Peter knows that. There’s a whole fucking debris field between here and there, but Peter drags himself through it, trying to knock shit out of the way. The floor is slippery from the sprinkler, and Peter’s head is fucking pounding, darkness trying to take him.

He can hear Tony moving. And when he casts a broken table-top aside, he can see him.

“Stop moving,” Peter slurs. “Don’t. Don’t, you’re gonna—hurt yourself. Tony.”

“You’re gonna—hurt yourself,” Tony says, weakly. He groans, and Peter can still see him moving. Where the hell is everybody else? Were they the only people in the damn compound?

“Friday,” Peter calls.

“ _I’m dispatching help, Peter, and having the med bay prepared._ ”

Peter looks up, sees Tony laying there underneath one of the steel desks, and he’s cradling his arm close to his chest. There’s a big bloody spot on his forehead, and his eyes are red as he squints over in Peter’s direction. There’s a shit ton of glass between the two of them, and Peter tries to push himself to his feet to avoid it. He wavers, holding his hands up against the brightness of the dying fire, and takes three uneasy steps before his legs give out and he collapses again. 

His hands plant down directly into the glass, and Peter cries out again. Sharp slices, and his blood seeps.

“Peter, _please stop_ heading over here,” Tony says, reaching his left arm out towards him, his hand shaking. He’s still favoring the right one. “Please. Someone’s coming, c’mon. Stop.”

“That shit is crushing you,” Peter says, teeth clenched. He’s moving and blinking and barely thinking. It hurts to breathe.

They were laughing. They were laughing before.

He hears Tony’s heart start beating faster, and Tony’s eyes widen. 

“You have a fucking _rod_ sticking out of your side, Pete.”

Peter’s chest heaves, and he looks down at it. The room is dark and bathed in shiny purple, from the emergency lights and the sprinklers, and the rod looks like some kind of alien through his addled mind and fucked vision. 

He glances back up at Tony. “That’s always been there.”

Tony’s eyes widen, and he grimaces, closing them again. “Pete, stay—”

Peter surges forward, his emotions leading him, and he kicks a broken keyboard out of the way, finally reaching the desk that’s pinning Tony down. He braces himself and lifts it, with a little more strain than would normally accompany something this size, and he casts it aside. Tony groans.

“You’re killing me,” he breathes, barely loud enough over the ringing in Peter’s ears, and Peter kneels next to him. 

He could have killed him. This is his fucking fault, Tony is hurt because of him.

“That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Peter groans, getting a flash of horrific pain that seeps through his body, from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head. He keeps hearing their laughter, like there was a moment when he could have changed things, could have focused and realized that he was about to make a big mistake—but who the hell knows when things went wrong, who knows if he made a minor mistake and made it worse somewhere down the line. 

There’s no point in thinking about it right now. He’s gotta make plenty of time for that later.

“I’m gonna lift you up,” Peter groans, trying to blink through the raw pain that’s pulsing through him.

“Pete, you have a fucking _thing_ sticking out of your _side_.” Tony looks at him wildly. “Just wait for the team, I’ll be—”

“I’m gonna lift you _up_ ,” Peter insists, feeling almost manic, and Tony rolls his eyes so hard that it looks painful. Then he winces again and keeps them closed. 

Peter tries to be careful with the arm Tony’s favoring, but he manages to hurt them both when he slips an arm around Tony’s waist, the two of them letting out twin groans as the pain in Peter’s body goes sharp. He stumbles, nearly drops him, but finally manages to straighten the two of them out. Tony is leaning on Peter’s good side heavily, his bad arm looped around Peter’s neck, and it looks like he’s got a bad leg now, too, from how gingerly he walks on it.

“Friday!” Tony blurts out, as the two of them stutter-walk over to the exit. “Let’s put the goddamn DUM-E protocol in action for that fire, stop making it rain, please. Holy shit, why do we even have rules if we’re not gonna follow them? Don’t be like me.”

Friday doesn’t respond, but the ceiling opens up in about six different places, little mini extinguishers revealing themselves and pointing at the fire. They start trying to extinguish it.

This lab is one of the smaller ones, but it feels like twenty blocks right now, all the shit Tony managed to pack in here toppled over between them and the door, like a minefield. Peter feels like he’s breaking down, and he glances at Tony for strength, but—Tony’s eyes are scrunched closed, his face twisted. It’s like he realizes Peter’s looking at him because he opens one eye, trying to manage a smile.

Peter blows out a breath, knocking the destroyed 3D printer out of the way.

“You should have just left me over there, bud—”

Peter groans, trying to be louder than him. “No,” Peter says. “Sorry.”

“It would have been way easier—”

Peter throws another table aside with one hand, anger fueling him now, for his own mistakes and Tony’s lack of self-preservation. “No way. Stop.”

“I _won’t_ stop, I’m _older_ than you—”

Peter’s feet start to stick in his own failed web experiment, which is draping over everything close to the door. But they are close. They’re close. 

He picks Tony up with one hand so he doesn’t stick too, and also, to get him to stop talking. But Tony groans in pain and Peter instantly feels bad, rushing forward so he can let him back down.

“I’m just fucking dead weight, Peter, and the room isn’t gonna collapse—”

“Stop, dumb,” Peter spits out, so close to the door now, so close, and his legs are jelly and his face is melting and he’s cold and hot at the same time. “You wouldn’t leave me.”

“That’s—”

“It’s not different,” Peter hisses, everything hurting a little bit more in that moment, and he feels like he’s burning up.

_I can’t lose you_ he thinks. Doesn’t say.

They were laughing, before. They were having fun. Peter loves loves _loves_ his time with Tony, every moment like something gifted and precious.

Peter doesn’t even know how many times he’s accidentally called him Dad.

His face burns even harder, and his emotions are threatening to get the better of him, and his eyes hurt, new tears coming, and his leg is throbbing and there’s a fucking rod sticking out of his side and his neck hurts and Tony is in pain and they were _laughing they were fine it was fine now it’s this now it’s this—_

The door slams open, hitting the wall with a crack. Peter sees Rhodey with some type of gear on, and a few others wearing masks. Rhodey makes eye contact with Peter, sees Tony, and his expression doesn’t change from one of pure determination. He’s wearing a gauntlet, and he aims at the remaining bullshit in Peter’s path, blasting it to the side so they have a clear way out. Peter adjusts his arm around Tony, receiving another groan in response, and he hobbles over to Rhodey, glass still crunching under their feet. 

“Let’s get them on gurneys, fellas, c’mon,” Rhodey says, to the team of nurses waiting just outside in the hallway. The masked men surge inside the room once Peter and Tony are out, and Peter doesn’t know what the hell they’re gonna do—the fire is almost dead, thanks to the DUM-E protocol. There’s no villains in there or anything suspicious. Just the reminder of his stupidity.

“I don’t need a gurney,” Peter says, his heart dropping when two nurses take Tony from him. “Tony needs—”

“Peter _needs a fucking gurney there is a rod sticking out of his side_ ,” Tony says, through gritted teeth as they load him up, and all the words run together and he’s pointing wildly, his eyes still closed like it’s too awful to keep them open.

Peter makes a move to go after him when they start to wheel him away, but Rhodey stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. 

“You do have a rod in your side, kid,” Rhodey says, calm as ever.

It’s the first real moment he’s had a chance to breathe in the tumultuous circumstances he threw them into, and Peter sways with the lightness of it, like he’s a balloon slipping from someone’s fingers, climbing higher and higher into the wide expanse of the sky. Towards certain doom, certain _pop_ and it’s over. He closes his eyes too, and they strain like burning. 

“It’s fine,” he says, swaying. “It’s like. I barely feel it.”

“Well. It’s there.”

“It’s fine,” Peter says again, still not opening his eyes. He hears a whole bunch of commotion and he sways again, forward, forward until he hits Rhodey’s shoulder.

“Alright, Peter, hey,” Rhodey says, holding onto him. “Guys, can we—”

“No gurney,” Peter slurs, leaning hard on Rhodey. “I can’t—ambulance too expensive. May says no.”

“Oh my God.”

He feels himself dissolving into particles then, and he vaguely feels around for the thing in his side—he manages to find the skin around it, soaked with blood, one of his favorite fucking shirts, and then he finds the thing itself, pokes it too hard, and he promptly passes the fuck out.

~

Usually he has dreams after shit like this happens. After he nearly gets run over by a semi-truck chasing bank robbers, after he falls off the Empire State Building with no webs, after Rhino clocks him so hard that he loses all his memories of the past week. Usually, in the resulting darkness, he’ll have dreams. Nothing that ever makes much sense—memories smashed with fantasies, things that’ll never happen, like that time he dreamt about him and MJ doing a different scene from Romeo and Juliet on every floor of the tower. He didn’t know what the hell that was about.

But this time, it’s just darkness. It’s like he’s floating in it. Sinking in it. Flatlining in it. Sludge and thick guilt trapping him with arms splayed, and he can’t breathe. He can’t think. He only knew he did this. His fault. Tony’s hurt, and it’s his fault.

He wakes up to May hovering over him. She clicks her tongue, shaking her head. He can feel his hand in hers. 

“I swear, honey bun, if you didn’t heal so fast I’d probably have had a heart attack by now.”

Peter narrows his eyes, and he reaches down, pawing at his side. He shoves up the soft sweater she’s got him wearing, and there’s a big bandage there where he’d hurt himself. But it doesn’t really—feel like anything.

“Peter, don’t pick—”

“I just wanna see,” Peter says. He peels up the corner, and when he reveals his skin, there’s only the ghost of a wound there—the skin isn’t even broken anymore, like whatever was once there happened long ago. There’s a circular clash of blood on the bandage, and it looks strange.

“Almost all gone,” she says. “It looked terrible when I first saw it. Your leg too.”

He pats the bandage back down, eager to change it to get rid of the blood. “How long was I out?” he asks, still feeling a little dizzy. The remains of his concussion, for sure. He’s had enough of them to know.

“About seven hours,” May says. “On the lower end of your—”

It’s like a brick hits him directly in the face. 

“Wait, where’s Tony?” Peter asks, his heart rattling as he meets her eyes.

“That took you a little longer than I expected—”

“My brain’s not working, how is he?” Peter asks, anxious energy running through him. He pushes himself up in the bed and rubs his hand over the core of his chest. “He was so worried about that thing sticking out of me, I just—”

“For good reason—”

“ _May_ ,” Peter groans. “Where is he?”

She sighs, and squeezes the hand she’s still holding. “Honey, I already talked to him, and he knows you’re gonna blame yourself, and he doesn’t want that.”

“Too late,” Peter says. He sighs too, knowing he’s not getting anywhere with her, and he lets go of her hand, throwing his legs over the side of the bed.

“Peter,” she says, moving out of his way.

“I think I know where he is, because he only likes certain rooms in here—” Peter says, cutting himself off to focus on walking. He still feels a little uneasy, but seven hours ago there was a rod sticking out of his side. As he heard so many times. So he’s doing pretty damn good.

“Okay, Speed Racer, I’ll take you, but you gotta like—chill out, when you see him,” May says, taking her place at Peter’s side. “He’s gonna be fine, it’s not permanent.”

She pushes the door open and they walk out into the hall, and he looks at her a little crazy-eyed. “What are you talking about?”

She clicks her tongue again and makes a weird face. “Just—it’s gonna be fine. He’s fine. Okay? Don’t start with the whole woe is me thing you do when you’re blaming yourself. Please.”

Peter narrows his eyes at her.

And as soon as he gets into Tony’s room, he realizes what she’s talking about. 

She slips away without comment and lets him process it.

Tony is laying there in the bed with goddamn _bandages_ over his eyes. Peter’s breath catches in his throat when he sees, and he races forward, his heart slamming in his ears.

“What happened?” Peter yells, panicking, rushing to Tony’s side. “Why, why—”

“Jesus,” Tony laughs, pushing himself up. “I specifically told them to alert me if you were heading this way—”

“What happened?” Peter asks again, grabbing Tony’s hand. “Did they take your eyes out? Why? Why would they do that?”

Tony scoffs, and it’s absolutely fucking horrible looking at him like this. “No, they did not take my—why is that the first place your mind goes? Would I be this relaxed? I lose a fingernail and I’m planning a funeral.”

Peter doesn’t laugh. He’s too freaked out. “So what’s going on?”

“It’s nothing,” Tony says, shaking his head. “My eyes were all messed up from the fire and the smoke and the chemicals and this was just a precaution. I’m gonna sleep on it like this tonight and they’re gonna take them off tomorrow. Promise. All good. They’re just trying to keep me in the dark because I’m too goddamn nosy.”

Peter lets out a shuddering breath. He finally notices that Tony’s wrist is wrapped up too, and there are cuts and bruises all over his arms, a long one across his neck, and a stitched-up wound on his forehead. 

Peter doesn’t wanna say it. He doesn’t wanna say it. But he hangs his head and says it anyway.

“It’s my fault.”

“It’s not,” Tony says, just as fast. “I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve blown myself up. It’s fine.”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” Peter whispers. “And I did it wrong. Or something. I don’t know, I don’t even know, that’s how—that’s how much I wasn’t paying attention. We were just laughing and then—and then—”

“Hey. Hey.” Tony tries to cup his cheek, but winds up covering Peter’s whole face with the palm of his hand. Peter can’t help it and he snorts, readjusting Tony’s hand against his cheek and holding it there. 

Tony laughs a little bit too. “There we go,” he says, his thumb swiping away one of Peter’s tears the moment it falls.

“I’m pretty much all—all healed up just seven hours later and you’re still—you’re still all messed up,” Peter breathes, still clutching at his hand.

“That’s the breaks when you’re stuck in one of these normal bodies,” Tony says, shrugging a bit. “Either way, I’d rather it be me than you.”

“It just sucks,” Peter says, shaking his head. 

“I know. Imagine if they’d taken both my eyes out.”

Peter snorts again. “Stop.”

“C’mere, bud,” Tony says, squeezing Peter’s other hand. “I’d pull you in but I don’t know where the hell your shoulder is.”

Peter blows out a breath and scoots up the bed, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder. Tony wraps his arms around him, and Peter sighs. Tony doesn’t often give hugs, and Peter relishes this one, despite the circumstances. 

“I’m just sorry,” Peter says.

“I don’t want you apologizing,” Tony says. “For real. You got me the hell out of there, you were in pain and messed up and you _still_ prioritized me, even though I was telling you not to. Now, next time, _listen_ to me—”

“Uh, not if you’re telling me to leave you in a burning exploded room,” Peter says.

“Peter—”

“Nope. Sorry.”

Tony laughs. “Stubborn as shit.”

“That’s me,” Peter says. 

“Well, Mr. Stubborn,” Tony says, ruffling his hair fondly. “How do you feel about staging a prison break right now? This blind guy needs some of the leftover macaroni that’s in the kitchen upstairs, but I can’t make the journey without you. Everybody else says I gotta stay in bed, blah blah blah. What do you think, Spider-Man, huh? Help me out.”

Peter smiles. “I’ll take you if you admit that whole explosion fuck up was my fault.”

Tony seems exasperated. “It wasn’t your fault. It was a fuck-up. Yes. But we all fuck up. You weren’t fucking up doing something dangerous, you were creating, and I was right there, I missed it too. So yes, you— _we_ —fucked up. It doesn’t deserve blame. Alright? You’re fine, I’m gonna be fine. All we lost were things, and that’s the best we can ask for. That’s what matters. Alright?” He ruffles Peter’s hair again.

Peter feels like shit, but—all that eases his heart a little.

“And I need my macaroni, Pete. It’s getting serious, I’ve been thinking about it since _before_ the explosion—”

“Okay, okay,” Peter says, sitting up.

“I mean, you had to make me watch you stumbling around with a _rod_ sticking out of your side,” Tony says, shaking his head. “I wish I’d had bandages over my eyes for _that._ ”

“Okay, I said,” Peter laughs. “Do you wanna walk or do you want me to wheel you around, old man?”

Even with the bandages, Tony still manages to look horribly offended. “Well, now I know which one I have to choose if I want to keep any shred of my pride.”

Peter gets up again. “Just keep your hands on my shoulders like we’re in a very short conga line,” he says. 

“You don’t seem like the conga type,” Tony says, as Peter helps him up. “Always learning new things.”

“I am a mystery,” Peter says, making sure Tony’s steady on his feet. “Mystery man.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony says, patting him on the shoulder. “Says the kid who was hiding his super pajamas in a ceiling panel the day I met him.”

They walk side by side instead, and they fall back into conversation like they were before everything blew up. Like it didn’t even happen, like everything is normal, despite visual evidence to the contrary. These small moments Peter’s been gathering with Tony, moments he never ever thought he’d have. 

And easy as anything, despite the major fuck-up—they’re right back to laughing.


End file.
